No answers only flame wars. What happened to discourse, argument and resolution....ooooh that to much to hope for? Naw, someone's always playin' the race card...like it meant something nowadaze.

I'll go back to the secret word threads now. Leave the professionals alone.

I usually agree with you KK, know you have a good heart, good intentions and I don't have any negative feelings towards you, and I hope you know that I don't mean this in a personal way, but, the race card was played by the author of the article when he used the phrase "black face" in reference to negative connotations towards President Obama. It's not about a flame war. I'm pointing out a crucial statement that's towards the head of the guys op-ed.

The guy is obviously targeting a specific demographic when using the term "black face" as an insult.

I'll ask again since so far, the first opinion offered didn't address the lack of discussion of social science and race relations in the article.

SPACEBROTHER wrote:

That's all fine and dandy..... but it still doesn't answer the question as to why the author Dr. Barry made it a point to use the phrase "black face" in reference to President Obama in his article that is critical of him. What is his point for his use of the term "black face" in reference to Obama in a negative connotation?

I'll ask again since so far, the first opinion offered didn't address the lack of discussion of social science of race relations in the article.

SPACEBROTHER wrote:

That's all fine and dandy..... but it still doesn't answer the question as to why the author Dr. Barry made it a point to use the phrase "black face" in reference to President Obama in his article that is critical of him. What is his point for his use of the term "black face" in reference to Obama in a negative connotation?

Well, I already made my case well enough, so I'm not going to bother saying it again. Instead I re-read the offending sentence, and now I'm going to posit a far fetched yet not impossible reading of the black face comment. Black face is mentioned specifically in reference to Obama's being part of the American oil oligarchy, is it possible that he's actually talking about oil and not skin colour? I'm considering this possibility because the article does read like the work of someone who likes slogans, and I think it's entirely possible that he was trying to be smart by making that connection but evidently failed miserably. Again, I respect that this is a far fetched reading, but just think about it, I'm not saying it's true, just that it's possible. Furthermore, this is not intended to be a defence, just another way of looking at it.

Anyway, I'm sure this will be met once again with eye-rolling pumpkins and pictures of Al Jolson and Klansmen, so I'm out.

Seriously, is it that hard to understand? He's just saying that people may have thought things were going to change in a significant way because a black president had been elected, I remember well the euphoria at the time from many people who believed something really fundamental had changed in America but it's just turned out to be business as usual.

_________________The way I see it Barry, this should be a very dynamite show.

Polydigm is right. The article or manifesto or whatever you call it is excessively wordy and could be greatly condensed. I didn't really see anything new in it and it was a struggle to read it all the way through.

_________________Everytime we picked a booger we'd flip it on this one winduh. Every night we'd contribute, 2, 3, 4 boogers. We had to use a putty knife, man, to get them damn things off the winduh. There was some goober ones that weren't even hard...

The first play of the race card in this thread is the third of paragraph of the editorial to be specific. Also, I don't buy the explanation that the use of the term pertaining to Obama as the new "black faced" murderer, is because his face is covered in oil.

That is exactly it. It's not over yet. I haven't studied the US situation enough to properly rate Obama as a president compared to his predecessors so no comment on that. But, similarly in the UK when Maggie Thatcher was elected as the first female prime minister, not only did it herald nothing really new - particularly for women - she dragged the country into the economic toilet. The UK has never really recovered and she just turned out to be the female face of a small and privileged class of people with an outmoded way of thinking.

_________________The way I see it Barry, this should be a very dynamite show.

...and she just turned out to be the female face of a small and privileged class of people with an outmoded way of thinking.

Who are now in the minority in the US, who now, loud and scared, spew fear and hate to win elections. Why? Just so they can dominate their subjects or pass laws that keep "the chosen few*" and their "rich class asses" on top? Don't vote for anyone that's negative. I bet that would help weed out the one's that can't run on their own record or platform...ya know?

George W failed because he's an idiot and rode his father's coattails.

He's not white?

SPACEBROTHER wrote:

The first play of the race card in this thread is the third of paragraph of the editorial to be specific. Also, I don't buy the explanation that the use of the term pertaining to Obama as the new "black faced" murderer, is because his face is covered in oil.

How are you gonna deal with Sun Ra, Spacebro? Sun Ra was born in Birmingham, Alabama around 1914! Do you think you know more about the black struggle than him? Sun Ra said he didn't trust anyone who preached about equality because equality does not exist on this planet. It's a false goal. Are you qualified to argue with Sun Ra about racism in America?

Here's a Sun Ra quote ....consider it my answer to your race baiting question. And then consider how petty you have tried to make this entire discussion.

"I couldn't approach black people with the truth because they like lies. They live lies … At one time I felt that white people were to blame for everything, but then I found out that they were just puppets and pawns of some greater force, which has been using them ." ~ Sun Ra

_______________I'm not a minister, I'm not a philosopher, I'm not a politician, I'm in another category.

Despite its racist portrayals, blackface minstrelsy was the conduit through which African-American and African-American-influenced music, comedy, and dance first reached the American mainstream.[9] It played a seminal role in the introduction of African-American culture to world audiences. Wrote jazz historian Gary Giddins in Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams, The Early Years 1903–1940:Though antebellum (minstrel) troupes were white, the form developed in a form of racial collaboration, illustrating the axiom that defined – and continues to define – American music as it developed over the next century and a half: African-American innovations metamorphose into American popular culture when white performers learn to mimic black ones.

— [164]

In a specific example of this, from Ted Fox's Showtime at the ApolloElvis Presley, a young, still raw hayseed, was making his first trip to the Big Apple to see his new record company, and the Apollo was where he wanted to be. Night after night in New York he sat in the Apollo transfixed by the pounding rhythms, the dancing and prancing, the sexual spectacle of rhythm-and-blues masters like Bo Diddley....In 1955, Elvis's stage presence was still rudimentary. But watching Bo Diddley charge up the Apollo crowd undoubtedly had a profound effect on him. When he returned to New York a few months later for his first national television appearance, on Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey's Stage Show, he again spent hours at the Apollo after rehearsals. On the Dorsey show Elvis shocked the entire country with his outrageous hip-shaking performance, and the furore that followed made him an American sensation.

— [69]:5, 92–92, 1983 ed.

Many of country's earliest stars, such as Jimmie Rodgers and Bob Wills, were veterans of blackface performance.[165][166][167] More recently, the American country music television show Hee Haw (1969–1993) had the format and much of the content of a minstrel show.[168]The immense popularity and profitability of blackface were testaments to the power, appeal, and commercial viability of not only black music and dance, but also of black style. This led to cross-cultural collaborations, as Giddins writes; but particularly to the often ruthless exploitation and outright theft of African-American artistic genius, as well—by other, white performers and composers; agents; promoters; publishers; and record company executives.[169][170][171][172][173]While blackface in the literal sense has played only a minor role in entertainment in recent decades, various writers see it as epitomizing an appropriation and imitation of black culture that continues today. As noted above, Strausbaugh sees blackface as central to a longer tradition of "displaying Blackness".[13] "To this day," he writes, "Whites admire, envy and seek to emulate such supposed innate qualities of Blackness as inherent musicality, natural athleticism, the composure known as 'cool' and superior sexual endowment," a phenomemon he views as part of the history of blackface.[13] For more than a century, when white performers have wanted to appear sexy, (like Elvis[174][175] or Mick Jagger[176]); or streetwise, (like Eminem);[176][177] or hip, (like Mezz Mezzrow);[178] they often have turned to African-American performance styles, stage presence and personas.[179] Pop culture referencing and cultural appropriation of African-American performance and stylistic traditions—often resulting in tremendous profit—is a tradition with origins in blackface minstrelsy.[169]The international imprint of African-American culture is pronounced in its depth and breadth, in indigenous expressions, as well as in myriad, blatantly mimetic and subtler, more attenuated forms.[180] This "browning", à la Richard Rodriguez, of American and world popular culture began with blackface minstrelsy.[169] It is a continuum of pervasive African-American influence which has many prominent manifestations today, among them the ubiquity of the cool aesthetic[181][182] and hip hop culture.[183]See also

_________________Everytime we picked a booger we'd flip it on this one winduh. Every night we'd contribute, 2, 3, 4 boogers. We had to use a putty knife, man, to get them damn things off the winduh. There was some goober ones that weren't even hard...

I can't speak for Sun Ra, and neither can you. I suspect, had he had lived to see America's first black president, he wouldn't be at all surprised by the racism thrown at Obama, but then, we'll never know exactly how he feels because he died 20 years ago. A lot has changed since then.

One thing that I always think is a stupid argument is when somebody thinks they know what somebody else would say.

I've worked with people from all over the world. I have seen how they encounter prejudice in the American society, and on at least two occasions, I have had to deal personally with the racism they came up against.

I have had more black friends than most white guys I know, and most black folks like me a lot. I once lived with a black woman. It didn't work out, but not because she saw me as some sort of white devil. I'm just a regular devil.

As I have lived and worked, in almost every kind of neighborhood you can think of, I have met racists who just assumed I was racists because I am white. While I might still be my father's son, I have never thought of myself as hating other races. Trust me, when it comes to work, I don't care if you are aquamarine, I just need you to be competent. When it comes to that, skin color has never been an indicator.

Nor is it an indicator when it comes to racism. In southern California, I worked with Mexican racists who hate black people. Just across the way here, there are Asians that talk shit about blacks all the time. I suffered taunts from black people in north St. Louis, who called me crackerass and redneck. Granted, I was cutting off their electricity at the time, but still...

The point I am making is that no one in this world is completely colorblind. SPACEBUTT sees racists everywhere, and it seems that they are all white. Maybe I'm wrong, but that is also racism.

This call to unity has nothing to do with race. We are all under the thumb. For SPACEBUTT to reject the essay because of two misunderstood words that were properly used demostrates the sort of mentality the human race is up against...stupid, blind minds that must hate, that must have an enemy in order to feel good about themselves.

_________________Everytime we picked a booger we'd flip it on this one winduh. Every night we'd contribute, 2, 3, 4 boogers. We had to use a putty knife, man, to get them damn things off the winduh. There was some goober ones that weren't even hard...

_________________Everytime we picked a booger we'd flip it on this one winduh. Every night we'd contribute, 2, 3, 4 boogers. We had to use a putty knife, man, to get them damn things off the winduh. There was some goober ones that weren't even hard...

There is no misunderstanding of the context of the term "black face" used in conjunction with the adjectives murderous and tyrant. The cynical conjecture of that term is written to appeal to a specific targeted demographic. Not surprising for the sudden rise of paranoia stricken hate groups in recent years. It's not unlike the politicians who recently used the terms "tar baby" and "macaca". The dog whistle blows loud and blatantly clear.

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